Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh

Okie dokie, we have fan requests for more Stephanie Beaton. So I will be dabbling into a series I have not watched in some time. We are diving into the Witchcraft franchise. I will bring you up to speed. Will Spanner (Charles Solomon Jr., Marklen Kennedy and David Byrnes) is a warlock/lawyer/amateur occult specialist. Destined to be a terror similar to Damien Hellstrom from Marvel Comics, a world of evil awaits one day for him to turn. So he is on the third regeneration (yes they have gone through a few Wills) and was killed during the hammiest of vampire clans and he died...or did he?  The reoccurring cops Lutz and Garner keep somehow forget that magic and the supernatural occur.   Or their current writer forgets. This is Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh.

Psst, hey rookie. Lutz has great legs, right?

Our title cards are a bit different from the last time and company as Troma has taken over for production. Hmm, that mean there's going to be more than a few sex scenes? Yeah does scream 80s porno but lacks the bluesy saxophone or synthesizer. We open with a pretentious art gallery with wine free flowing and no smoking??  Must be California. With two bodies on the ground and maybe the cops ought to be notified.  Oh and Troma fans, there. I have reviewed a Troma movie so nyah. Almost 4 minutes of title sequence. AHHHH!!!!

Now Lutz and Garner were previously Kurt Alan and John E. Holiday, however we have a different Garner and we have the previous Lutz replaced by his sister Lucy (Alisa Christensen and now Stephanie Beaton). Now my only complaint with this Lutz and Garner(Mikul Robins of Teen Wolf, Frogtown II, V-World Matrix, Witchcraft XI: Sisters in Blood, and The Craven Cove Murders) becoming doubters and have to recap the notion they have worked with Will before. That and Will being a lawyer somehow means he's a P.I.   Yeah more than a few hiccups. This dude would be so disbarred. Anywho, the film prior to this has nothing to do with the series continuation overall, so enough of that. No I mean it. It was about a haunted house, sex starved coven and a rival warlock.  It's been a bit garbled.

Police? I've got a warlock masturbating outside my window. Again.

Lutz and Garner are at the crime scene for a double homicide and are fairly calm there's only one body quite dead. Will tries to talk to them but he is out of his skull. By that ,I mean he is a spirit and must find someone to communicate that. We get some flashback sequences or as I like to call it Will's Slideshow. Footage of the previous flicks and up to his demise. If only someone could assist him.

Naturally you'd think a prostitute like Sheila (Landon Hall of Stolen Hearts, Different Strokes, Black Thunder, Forbidden Passions, The Escort III and Hotel Exotica) is Will's medium. Hey, beats Whoopi anyday. With a quick exposition dump, it is revealed that Sheila had a near death experience and now she hears dead people.

Will's fiancee Keli is quite upset that Will hasn't called or gotten in touch with her. At least those were lines she delivered. Suffice to say, Leah Kourtne Ballantine doesn't exactly give a great performance. Her third film but the vibe of this execution is...she looks extremely sleepy. The way she dispatching lines feels lackluster in their apartment in spite of having a house together in two films prior. Yeah I don't know either. No follow-up to what happened with that too. Will does quite a bit of wandering and for some reason a streetwalker out and about is Stephanie Beaton. Is Lutz working with Vice? Yeah I am all sorts of confused. Maybe B roll footage to pad the film. Hell I've got no clue.

Oh the hell with Hepburn and Tracy. These two capture the screen.

Lutz and Garner are hot on the case and well is it wrong for me like Stephanie Beaton in these short pencil skirts? Sorry ladies, I am normally behaved but she has amazing legs. Okay moving on, he said holding on to the pathetic shreds of dignity.

So this time around it is not competing warlocks, vampires or witches but we do have ritual killings for the sake of the Egyptian god...well I think it's for Ra as we have his symbol scrawled in blood. Yeah not really clear on that. 1/4 of this movie is sex scenes. Yup suddenly the mildly boobage series has gone straight soft core Skinamax. I mean it's going to happen if you need men to rent this flick. Toss boobs at them and they are happy guys. Plot? Meh, rather have boobs thanks. Apologies, the blood letting is happening for Kafu Hu. Umm that's not a god or demon. That's the name of a long dead pharaoh. Oh my God, he's summoning Hawkman. So the whole Satan plot thing got dropped as well. Yeah I do understand how folks have gotten confused about this series.

Also for some reason Will's body is inhabited by another spirit plowing his girlfriend. Annnd he grew longer hair and a goatee. Since he died. Huh, death is screwy, huh? So a multitude of sex scenes and Will might, just might get back to his body. This of course is assuming Sheila's off the clock. Will and Sheila banter, I think. Well it seems like good natured ribbing but it falls a bit flat.

Lutz and Garner find sacrifices with same Egyptian blood scrawling and it's the strangest thing they've ever encountered. With the exception of a coven of witches and a cadre of vampires prior. They come to the conclusion it's time to find an expert on these Egyptian symbols. Enter Professor Shannon (Katherine Hudson of Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh andMasseuse) who sheds a little light on the case. Which she really didn't. She explains about a cult founded with this pharoah and Satan and bleh! Writer, go back to the source material and then work your own plot but for crying out loud look at the stuff already done.

Sheila tries to convince Garner that she is speaking on the behalf of Will and well she forgot to mention Will's dead, and there are cultists again, hearts being carved out. Basically, EVERYTHING WILL ASKED HER TO DO!!!!

The confusing problem with this film isn't the rewrite back into Will returning from the great beyond is so much as camera angles not matching up, dissolves that don't link to the next scene and frankly I think the editor isn't doing his job. David Byrnes' performance isn't bad but it is damn confusing when the scenes don't mesh. Stephanie's Lutz is trying to genuinely get work done but her captain goes into his office after one scene and smokes. Yup. Cases closed. Hearts cut out from the bodies? Clearly suicide and I can't hear your complaints in flavor country.

She and Robins have some decent scenes but the hack of an editor was either drunk, in Union, on breaks or just flat out incompetent. Hey maybe it wasn't his fault. Regardless the ADR is awful in sex scenes. Dude porn has better ADR than this flick. The plot holes are substantial, a bit of exposition establishes Will lost his house and had to move...after he died. Whoops.

Looks like I am going to have to watch Witchcraft X if I want to actually get to see Stephanie Beaton shine. We'll see if I can find that.

Garner, where you looking at my butt?